Capturing the world through photography, video and multimedia

Students from the Adolf Fredrik music school perform at a St. Lucia concert at the Stockholm Cathedral for more than a thousand spectators. Each Dec. 13, Sweden observes St. Lucia's day, a celebration of light that centers around a Sicilian martyr.

Riot police block Manezh Square in central Moscow to prevent soccer fans and Russian nationalists from clashing with natives of the North Caucasus over the death of a Spartak Moscow supporter, fatally shot last week in a street fight.

Trees and grass along Lake Michigan are covered in ice after wind gusts of 40 mph blew waves onto the shore as temperatures dropped into the low teens. Snow, frigid temperatures and high winds caused more than 1,500 flights in and out of the city's airports to be canceled and wreaked havoc across the Midwest.

U.S. Marines begin the day at British Camp Leatherneck in Helmand province. The U.S.-led NATO alliance in Afghanistan warned today that foreign soldiers will face further violence in 2011, capping what has been the deadliest year of the war thus far.

A man reads a sign informing passengers about a work stoppage at a shuttered entrance to the Syntagma metro station. Public transport and media workers launched a week of anti-austerity strikes expected to ground flights, disrupt services and allow uncollected trash pile up on the streets during the holidays.

A worker at a wholesale iron market inspects his wares. Iron ore exports from India's key Karnataka state are likely to fall 67% for the year ending in March, 2011, due to a ban on exports that has hit supplies to the global market and hardened prices. India is the world's third largest supplier of iron ore.

A flock of black skimmers huddle together for warmth as they face an icy wind on Ben T. Davis Beach. Overnight temperatures in Florida are predicted to drop into the upper 20s as a cold front moves through the state.

A Russian Soyuz TMA-20 spacecraft is transported to its launch pad at the Baikonur cosmodrome. The three-man space mission, with U.S. astronaut Cady Coleman, Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli and Russian cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratiev, is scheduled to blast off for the International Space Station on Wednesday.

A gallery assistant views Mick Inkpen's "Kipper and Wibbly Pig," left, and Paul Mellia's "Thomas the Tank Engine" at Sotheby's auction house. The pieces are part of a collection of illustrations from childrens' television and literature to be sold this week to help raise funds for the House of Illustration, a new project in Kings Cross offering illustrators a place to work and exhibit.

Afghan Shiite Muslims take part in a Muharram procession in a mosque in Kabul. Muharram is the first month of the Islamic calendar, when a period of mourning is observed in remembrance of the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the grandson of Prophet Mohammed.

A worker, hands covered in gunpowder, prepares fireworks at a makeshift factory in Bocaue. Many Filipinos flocked to the province of Bulacan, where many fireworks are made, to buy pyrotechnics despite the government's campaign against the use of such explosives, which cause deaths and injuries during Christmas and New Year revelries.

South Korean postal workers dressed as Santa Claus leave the post office headquarters to deliver Christmas gifts to poor people for their charity campaign in Seoul. The campaign, which involved some 50 letter carriers, will be expanded into nine cities until the end of this year.

Anti-nuclear activists roll symbolic nuclear-waste barrels to the constituency office of German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Stralsund. The action is a protest against the upcoming transport of nuclear waste to an interim storage site.

Police and rescue workers are seen through a damaged school bus as they survey the site of a bomb explosion in Peshawar. A bomb hit the school bus in the northwestern Pakistani city on Monday, killing a passerby and wounding two young female students and two others, officials said.

A photograph of veteran U.S. diplomat Richard C. Holbrooke is pictured next to a Bosnia and Herzegovina flag at the U.S. embassy in Sarajevo on Tuesday. Holbrooke, 69, died Monday after surgery to repair a tear in his aorta and won posthumous praise in Bosnia for brokering the Dayton treaty that ended the 1992-95 war — even if peace since then has not been all that many had hoped for.

An antinuclear protester holds a candle at a demonstration against the transport of nuclear waste. A train traveling from Cadarache in France with four castors containing nuclear waste is expected to arrive in the northeastern German city of Lubmin on Thursday.

A Roman statue buried for centuries was unearthed by winter storms that hit the coast of Israel. The white marble figure of a woman in a toga and sandals was found in the remains of a cliff that crumbled under the force of winds, waves and rain at this ancient Israeli port.

Condensation trails of an Israeli F16 fighter jet form circles in the sky above a rally marking the 23rd anniversary of the founding of Hamas. The Islamist movement's Gaza leader Ismail Haniya told a crowd numbering tens of thousands that Hamas will never recognize the Jewish state.

Juraj Markovic, 61, bathes in a natural thermal spring near the village of Kalameny as outdoor temperatures dropped well below freezing. The spring is one of many natural spas found in Slovakia's Liptov region.

Antigovernment protesters clash with riot police near the Italian parliament. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government narrowly won a key parliament confidence vote, staving off a demand for the premier's resignation made by the center-left opposition and a group of rebel conservatives.

Police march as a police van and cars have been set on fire at Piazza del Popolo during a protest by youths to demand a change of government as parliament met to hold a crucial vote that could have toppled Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Berlusconi scraped through a crucial confidence vote in the lower house of parliament by 314 votes in favor and 311 against.

Members of the People of Freedom party celebrate in parliament. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi narrowly survived a no-confidence motion in the lower house of parliament, but the future of his government remained uncertain because of its wafer-thin majority.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange arrives at Westminster Magistrates Court inside a prison van with red windows. A British judge granted bail to the WikiLeaks founder but he remained in custody pending a possible appeal.

A Geminid meteor streaks between peaks of the Seven Sisters rock formation in the Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada. The Geminid meteor shower appears to radiate from the constellation Gemini and is thought to be the result of debris cast off from an asteroid-like object. The shower is visible every December.

A child reaches out to touch foam used to simulate snow at a shopping mall. Singapore malls are taking advantage of the festive season to draw in customers through visual merchandising, advertising and year-end sales.

A Russian pilgrim lights candles in the Church of the Nativity, built on the site where Christian tradition holds that the Virgin Mary gave birth to Jesus Christ. Tourists from all over the world flock there annually to celebrate the Christmas holiday.

A flight information board at Athens International Airport indicates all flights are canceled, a result of a 24-hour nationwide strike, which also closed schools and paralyzed public transportation in Greece. The strike is the culmination of protests against austerity laws aimed at stemming the nation's financial crisis.

A man in Shanghai's financial district takes cover against the falling snow. Shanghai will see temperatures dip below freezing on Thursday and Friday as the latest cold front hits the city, according to weather forecasts.

The Oscar Niemeyer Foundation building, designed by the legendary Brazilian architect, is dedicated on Niemeyer's 103rd birthday. The museum outside Rio houses drawings and models from his 70-year career.

A young monk holds a traditional parasol as he waits for the arrival of Tibet's exiled Buddhist spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, in Pemayangtse monastery in Pelling. The Dalai Lama is in Sikkim, which borders with China, as Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao begins his three-day visit to New Delhi.

A Russian tourist prays at the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray in Jerusalem's Old City. A leading Israeli rabbi has ruled that the wall is now off-limits on the Sabbath. Rabbi Yosef Shalom Eliashiv, a 100-year-old rabbinical authority widely revered among ultra-Orthodox Jews, says the closed-circuit surveillance cameras at the wall may protect visitors but that the technology violates the biblical commandment to refrain from work on the Sabbath.

Conservative Greek politician Kostis Hatzidakis is escorted to safety after being hit by stones and sticks thrown by leftists in central Athens. Police fired teargas at the protesters, who also threw petrol bombs at two luxury hotels in the central Syntagma square outside parliament. The violence is a response to new government-imposed austerity measures.

A Tibetan activist is detained by Indian police during a protest outside the hotel where Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is staying in New Delhi. Wen arrived in India in a visit intended to build trust between the Asian powers with increasingly close economic ties, despite ongoing competition for regional influence.

Riot police officers patrol in Manezh square in Moscow amid fears of a repeat of Saturday's clashes. Parts of Moscow were under police lockdown Wednesday as the city remained jittery over possible ethnic clashes following weekend rioting outside the Kremlin.

A demonstrator dressed as a vampire stands outside the European Union headquarters in Brussels to protest austerity measures that are being rolled out across Europe. The "vampire" was one of tens of thousands who waged protests organized by the European trade unions in Brussels and other European cities.

As temperatures plunge across the United States, New Yorkers warm up with Charmin in Times Square by attempting to break the Guinness World Record for largest cha-cha-cha dance. Charmin donated $5 for each participant to Big Brothers Big Sisters of New York City.

An Afghan boy holds a flag during a procession for Muharram, as Ashura is known in the region. Shiite mourners beat themselves with steel-tipped flails or slash their bodies with knives to mark the anniversary of the death of Imam Hussein, a grandson of prophet Muhammad in 680.

Esmanur Kacmaz, a five-year-old Turkish Shiite girl, stands next to a painting of Ali, son-in-law of prophet Muhammad, as she takes part in an Ashura procession in the Turkish capital. Ashura commemorates the slaying of Ali's son Hussein in 680.

A Tibetan activist raises signs outside the U.N. office during a protest against the visit of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in New Delhi. The leaders of India and China called Thursday for a stronger partnership between their countries as they publicly downplayed the lingering economic and political tensions among Asia's rising powers. China resents the presence in India of the self-declared Tibetan government-in-exile and the Dalai Lama.

Two young men surf as temperatures hover around 20 degrees Fahrenheit in Munich. Reports state that Europe is bracing itself for more snow and freezing temperatures, which are likely to disrupt transportation and hamper shoppers in the run-up to Christmas.

The Church of the Nativity in the West Bank town of Bethlehem is a major draw at this time of year. A record number of tourists and pilgrims are expected to visit Bethlehem to pray at the site of Jesus Christ's birth.

Supporters of Hezbollah in Lebanon chant slogans and carry flags during an Ashura celebration during the sacred Islamic month of Muharram. Shiite mourners beat themselves during Ashura with steel-tipped flails or slash their bodies with knives to mark the anniversary of the death in battle of Imam Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Mohammad.

A woman walks during a snowfall. A fresh blast of snow threatened to throw Britain's roads and railways into disarray in the run-up to Christmas, as winter tightened its grip on the country for the second time this year. This December is likely to be the coldest since records began in 1910 if temperatures in the second half of the month are as low as they have been in the first, said Helen Chivers, a forecaster at the Met Office.

Homeless Roma sit near an open fire on snow-covered pavement in front of the cardiology hospital Filip II. Reports state that Macedonia is being hit by a cold front, with morning temperatures dropping to 8 degrees Fahrenheit.

Muhammad Fikri, 2, sleeps in a hammock in a refugee camp for tsunami victims. Despite the end of the post-tsunami reconstruction process, there are still tsunami victims living in refugee camps because they have not received housing assistance.

A Shiite Muslim fire-breather performs during an Ashura mourning procession commemorating the martyrdom of Imam Hussein. Muslims across the world are observing Moharram, the first month of Islamic calender. The climax of Moharram is the Ashura festival commemorating the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Mohammed in the Iraqi city of Karbala in the 7th century.

A Palestinian demonstrator protecting his head with a plastic bag prepares to hurl back a tear gas bomb fired by Israeli troops during a weekly protest against Israel's controversial separation barrier.

The Week in Pictures | Dec. 13-19, 2010

Each weekday we sift through hundreds of wire photos and those shot by our staff photographers to bring you our favorites. At the end of the week we gather up all these photos into one gallery to highlight the best images of the week. Not surprising for this time of year, winter-themed photos are in abundance but we found them interesting nonetheless. Protests also rocked Italy, Greece and England and photographers were there to capture the emotions. Be sure to see the not-so-serious images too, such as a cross-eyed opossum and Santas on motorbikes.